My Backup Leg

My back up leg serves only one purpose and that is to act as a back up in case something goes wrong with my every day leg. I originally wanted to have it match exactly my every day leg, but instead thought I would try Freedom's Renegade foot. It's low profile so I can cover it if I want it to serve as my back up pretty leg and has a similar bounce to Ossur's VSP foot.

V-Hold is a brand new piece of technology that was recently released by Hanger. It basically automatically vacuums the air from your socket to keep your leg on. When the vacuum is working well, my leg feels very light.

The major reason I like the V-Hold is because it tells me immediately if I have any air leakage. The unit will start making buzzing noise and if not corrected, within one minute it will shut off the vacuum.

The reason this is important is because if you don't know you are leaking air and your unit continues to suck air out you will end up with a 'hickey' on your residual limb. (Similar to attaching a vacuum hose to your arm and letting it suck continuously.) This can potentially create other issues and from my experience, it's very painful and slow to heal.

Click here to watch short V-Hold Video and understand fully how it works.

Nice thing about having this V-Hold as a back up -- if one unit breaks, I can just switch the unit without having to switch legs!